Where is the Norway in Norwegian Airlines?

Norwegian Air International is a rather weird company. It is based in Ireland (even though it doesn't have any flights there). The pilots are from several Asian cultures primarily from Thailand. And they currently have flights from New York, California, and Florida that depart for across the pond and land in Scandinavia, Africa, and Asia.

United States carriers and even the Department of Transportation are against the idea of opening up more routes within the United States in part because they don’t want NAI’s low prices to affect the aviation market but mostly they are against it because of safety. Because the NAI is registered in Ireland they are not subject to many of the same safety rules that are present in both the United States or even in Norway. Also the pilots that they are hiring are not subject to the same safety checks that American or other pilots have to go through such as annual flight reviews.

The DOT has even recently denied the NAI to open more routes in the United States.  The main causes were the fact that the NAI wanted to be exempt from U.S. air regulations and follow their own rules, they also felt that the unfair price difference would force some small air carriers out of business. They also felt that the way the NAI ran their airline and its unusual creation was considered unsafe. These feelings were even felt in Europe and many European companies agreed with the U.S. DOT stand against NAI. Personally I am glad that the DOT shut down this proposal, while I feel that many airline ticket prices are rather expensive I still feel glad that there is some fair competition out there. It is also nice because the American carriers can still be around and hire American pilots.

If the NAI is able to get more routes in the U.S. it could completely destabilize the industry. Due to their low prices other major airlines like Delta would be forced to lower their prices. If this happens Delta would not be able to support their large fleet and would eventually have to go into bankruptcy. This is what would happen to most of the major airlines. Some of the smaller air carriers such as Southwest might still be able to survive however they would need to change their policies fairly quickly in order to keep up with the competition.

For more info on NAI check out these links:

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/department-of-transportation-denies-norwegian-air-international-permit-110536.html

http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/2014/09/02/dot-norwegian-air-alpa-foxx/14810499/

http://www.norwegian.com/us/

Skynet Takes to the Skies

Currently most UAVs are privately owned and are used for enjoyment like flying at your local airport, or putting on an RC plane show however some people use them to survey areas and make videos. So far UAVs aren't really regulated when it comes to small UAVs like RC aircraft however when it comes to departments like homeland security or the department of defense they are highly regulated when it comes to the UAVs they use to defend and watch our borders.

UAVs are already being integrated into NAS the FAA has been working on regulations for UAVs for many years now and it has only become more of an issue. In the southern states the department of homeland security has been using UAVs to watch the border for 23 hours a day. They are being used along the coast to watch our harbors and are even being used for search and rescue purposes.

However with recent midair collisions and near misses the public is not looking to favorably upon UAVs except with regards to the amazon prime air in which case people see a flying target and some free stuff. The public doesn't quite see what all is going on in the background when it comes to the application of UAVs and in fact most people haven’t heard of them outside of the military drones. What most people don’t realize is that even now people like police and firefighters are using small UAVs to look potential crime areas or even disaster areas.

Just recently Detroit Michigan had a mock disaster drill involving a semi-truck and a car collision, when the fire department arrived on scene they immediately launched a small drone to look for any potential hazards and to assess the damage. The drill was a success.

Another thing to look at is the possibility of making commercial flights more unmanned. While this would be nice for the airliners having no pilots on the plane which means more paying passengers and more cabin space since you won’t need a cockpit I feel that this will never happen partly because of how the public feels and partly because if something goes wrong you want a pilot on the plane to fix it and get the plane on the ground safely.

I feel that the military has used UAVs effectively it has allowed us to have improved surveillance our enemies without putting pilots in harm’s way. It is also a little safer because you don’t have a single pilot making all the decisions with each drone there are two controllers one for the pilot who flies the plane and one who controls the weapons. Also because the pilot isn't in direct danger they have longer to make decisions and implement the procedures.

There are a lot of jobs out there for UAV operators in fact there are whole websites devoted to finding UAV jobs like this one http://jobs.uavjobbank.com/a/jobs/list/ I was actually surprised with how many jobs were out there. Many of these positions were for the National Guard however some were for companies like Textron who is currently looking for UAV flight instructors.

Personally while I don’t have a problem with UAVs I am glad that I am an old fashioned pilot. To me flying a UAV is like playing Microsoft Flight Simulator just with waaaayyyy better graphics and real world applications and consequences. I hope that in the future UAVs will be better regulated so that we stop having these near misses in the skies and everything will be a little better.